


Bunnymoon

by branwyn



Category: Lost
Genre: Ben Linus: Mastermind, Frottage, M/M, fake journalism, obsessive research about bunny habitats, original rabbit character - Freeform, tw for Locke's miserable life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:02:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26450827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/branwyn/pseuds/branwyn
Summary: Ben Linus wants to adopt a rabbit. First, he'll have to convince the bald man who works at the shelter that he's worthy.
Relationships: Benjamin Linus/John Locke
Comments: 11
Kudos: 30





	Bunnymoon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [livenudebigfoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/livenudebigfoot/gifts).



1.

John meets Coco his first day on the job at Furry Friends Animal Rescue outside Tustin. She’s a three-year old domestic rabbit with medium length white fur and two big round patches of brown on her back. They look like a snowman, or the number eight with the spaces filled in. 

“We keep a bale of Timothy hay on a tarp out back,” Dana, the shelter manager, tells him. She holds a piece of straw out for Coco to nibble. “If she’s in your way, just fill a box up with straw and plop her down in it. Should keep her busy for a few minutes.”

Generally speaking, the shelter isn’t even set up to take rabbits. John thinks Coco was probably a one-time favor, in exchange for a hefty donation. She seems okay, despite the ad lib accommodations. They have to keep her away from the dogs and socialize her with the cats, but the cats don’t hiss at her much more than they hiss at each other. Her cage has plenty of hay, and the staff keeps her supplied with toys for enrichment. 

John pets her silky ears and sometimes, when no one is looking, John hides behind the counter and acts surprised when Coco finds him.

There are worse fates in the world for unwanted animals.

On Tuesday mornings, when he’s cleaning out the cat cages, John lets Coco hop around his feet, inspect the fresh litter, and tear up a phone book while he goes around with the spray bottle and paper towels. John’s only here in the first place because his therapist thinks he’s too isolated. Coco is good company. Facing daylight twice a week is easier when he doesn’t think of it as pointless drudge work to keep his therapist happy, but as meaningful drudge work that keeps _Coco_ happy.

On Wednesday mornings, John works the front room, which means he’s the guy at the desk when they get visitors. The front room has big picture windows to let in the daylight, and a long, low ledge where John keeps a small cardboard box full of hay and newspaper. Coco sits in the box, her fur translucent in the sunlight, gradually reducing the cardboard to a damp pile of wood pulp. Visitors coo at her, and stroke her ears, and Coco sniffs their hands and their faces and makes the children giggle. 

No one asks if she’s available for adoption. 

After a few weeks, John is grudgingly ready to admit that his therapist was right about the work doing him good. He knows he’s getting better because he feels angry again. For a long time after what happened with his father, being angry required energy he just didn’t have. But after six months, he’s starting to wake up a little. Get the feeling back in the numb places.

The shelter makes John angry in ways that are hard to explain. 

He hates the odor of all that cat piss. He hates when the dogs sound hurt or scared, which is almost always. John goes home with the cries and whines of sad animals ringing in his head. When he shuts his eyes, they get louder.

The animals aren’t to blame. It’s people: their thoughtlessness, their irresponsibility. People, treating living creatures like objects. Like they’re disposable. People who should know better.

“You know, I used to run a home inspection business,” he says off-handedly to Dana one morning, as he helps unload the big fifty pound sacks of dog food from the van. “People paid me a lot of money to find out if the dishwasher in their new house had another ten years on it, or if the basement smelled funny. You’d think,” he continues, heaving two sacks onto the pallet, “that people would put as much thought into whether they could take care of a cat or a dog as they put into whether they’re gonna need to get a new dishwasher a decade from now.” 

“Some of the bigger shelters are starting to make home checks a requirement,” Dana tells him. “I’d do it here, but I don’t have the time and I can’t send Tarisse out.” Tarisse is the shelter’s only full time employee besides Dana, and she doesn’t have a car.

“I’ve got the time,” John hears himself saying.

Dana arches her eyebrows, but John sees no reason to take it back. Time is the one thing he’s wealthy in. On the days he doesn’t volunteer, he sits in his room, watching bad television. There’s a reason he hides in shadows and blue TV screen light, but it isn’t a good reason. Eventually he’d like to not have to do it anymore. 

“Well,” says Dana. “If you got the time, I guess you got a job.”

*

Ben just wants a damn rabbit. It’s not a crime, and he resents the bald man at the shelter for making him feel guilty about it.

“You see, Mr. Linus, a lot of people adopt animals they’re not really prepared to take care of,” he says in a kindly, condescending voice that makes Ben grit his teeth. “Especially rabbits. You can’t leave ‘em alone in a classroom overnight. They get depressed, destructive—it’s not good for them.”

“It’s Dr. Linus, actually,” Ben seethes, politely. “What was your name again?”

“John Locke,” says the man, with a perfectly straight face.

“Well, _John_ , given that you haven’t told me yet whether this shelter even has any rabbits available for adoption—”

The shelter worker-cum-unemployed philosopher cuts him off by bending and placing a cardboard box on the counter. 

“We have one rabbit,” he announces in an oddly heavy tone. 

Ben blinks, then leans forward to peek inside the box, slightly concerned that it might be some kind of trap. But the only thing in the box is half a phone book, well-nibbled at the edges, a quantity of fresh hay, and, burrowed in the corner, what appears to be a small animal with white fur. 

Ben reaches out, not intending to do anything more than move the straw aside for a clearer look. Immediately, John pulls the box away from him. As if he were untrustworthy. Some sort of vicious bunny murderer.

“You know, rabbits are a little like people.” Carrying the box around the counter, John crouches on the floor, placing a sheet of newspaper on the tile before scattering straw over it. “They like to be properly introduced before you put your hands on them.”

Violator of bunny virtue, he’s that too apparently. “Hello, my name is Benjamin,” Ben says to the top of the rabbit’s head.

John’s mouth twitches. One large hand supports the rabbit’s midsection, another the hindquarters. Gently, he lifts the rabbit from the box and places it on the floor, crouching down next to it. The rabbit immediately begins nuzzling John’s fingers, ducking its head. Like Chester used to do when he wanted Ben to rub his ears.

“This is Coconut,” John says. In an ordinary voice. Somehow, Ben was expecting baby talk. “Coco, meet Dr. Linus.” 

Before Ben can decide what role he is supposed to assume in this dialogue, John reaches into his front pocket and produces a couple of slightly dry baby carrots. 

“Rabbits are also like people, in that they like you better when you feed them,” he says, holding the carrot out for Ben to take.

“Thank you,” Ben murmurs, a little surprised. He glances up, meeting John’s eyes for just a moment.

His green eyes, which look slightly blue in the clear morning light. 

The rabbit shuffles up to Ben as soon as the carrot makes an appearance. Whiskers brush his fingers, and a small brown nose twitches enthusiastically around his fingertips. Ben watches, rapt, as Coco nibbles at the carrot. But as soon as she gets a firm grip, she yanks it from his fingers and hops a few inches closer to John to eat it. 

For a white hot second, Ben wants to slink away in shame. He’s been rejected. The rabbit has found him wanting.

“Like I was saying,” says John. “The shelter has a policy. Animals have to be adopted into homes, not classrooms. Or bodegas, or bookstores. Nothing personal. It’s just what’s best for the animals.”

“As a matter of fact,” says Ben, “the rabbit would be going home with me at night. She’d be _my_ rabbit. I was just going to...share her, with my students.”

John blinks at this. He looks from side to side, like he’s thinking. When Coco finishes with the carrot and comes nuzzling at his pocket for another, he puts her back in the box and gets to his feet.

“I’ll get her set up in the social room,” he says. “You can get better acquainted.”

Triumph pulses hot in Ben’s chest. “I look forward to it,” he says.

A high-pitched, panicky voice in the back of Ben’s head starts to point out that he can see John’s biceps through the thin fabric of his shirt. It’s white, the shirt. One of those thin cotton undershirts you get six to a pack. He wonders if John has a real shirt, draped over the back of a chair somewhere, and then, abruptly, stops thinking altogether.

“Okay,” says John, returning to the front room a moment later. He’s holding open the door marked with a forbidding “employees only” sign. “Don’t take her out of the social room, make sure you shut the door behind you if you leave, call me if you need anything. I’ll be right next door.”

Ben steps past him. He hesitates, then looks over his shoulder. “Should I—is there anything special I should do? You know, to make her warm up to me.” He resents feeling humbled before this menial with the judgmental eyes, but the man clearly has a bond with the rabbit.

“Well, Dr. Linus, that’s the point of the social room.” John rubs his stubbled chin and looks away. “You want to adopt Coco, you better learn to speak bunny.”

*

2.

John was never going to pass Dr. Linus on the first home inspection. He’s man enough to admit that, at least to himself. He thinks Linus probably knows it too, but he’s still quietly breathing steam from flared nostrils, so controlled that John can’t help but wonder what he’s like when he lets himself off the leash.

“I really don’t see that it benefits the animals very much for you to run the shelter like it’s your own personal fiefdom,” he remarks in tense, clipped syllables.

“Oh, it’s Dana’s fiefdom, I’m just a lowly vassal.” John watches Linus’s shoulders go stiff with surprise. He thinks maybe he wasn’t supposed to know what that word meant. “But it’s my job to see that your home is a good place for a rabbit to live. If you don’t want to proceed in the adoption process—”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then I’m gonna need some things from you.” 

“Such as?”

“Well, for one thing, you’re missing half the stuff on that checklist I sent home with you.”

“What?” Dr. Linus draws the word out like it has an extra syllable. “Everything on the list, I purchased. I have _receipts_.”

“You got the wrong kind of hay,” says John, ticking off a finger. “Adult rabbits eat Timothy hay. You bought alfalfa hay, and that’s only good for baby rabbits. Then you got clay litter for the litter box. That’ll make a rabbit sick. She needs paper, or straw. And you got a water bottle instead of a water dish. Rabbits can’t get enough water out of those, she’ll end up dehydrated.”

Dr. Linus yanks the stoppered bottle off its perch on the side of the pen, a dull blush staining his cheeks.

“That pen is too small, even if you only plan to keep her there at night. It’s got a wire bottom and no padding. She’ll get sores on the bottom of her feet.”

“I see. Anything else?”

“Well, yeah.” 

Linus stares at him, unblinking. John crosses his arms and looks right back.

“You said you had a rabbit as a kid, right?”

“Yes. A domestic albino rabbit, named Chester.” He looks down at a pile of brightly colored rabbit toys and starts shoving them back into the shopping bag, as though embarrassed by them.

They’re not cheap, those toys. John would know. They’re the same ones he buys for Coco, in much smaller batches, on the shelter’s dime. Dr. Linus has about twenty of ‘em scattered over the sofa cushions, as if he’d been hoping John would bring Coco along and plop her right in the middle of them like a kid in a circle of birthday presents. 

Against his will, he feels himself softening. Linus probably has good intentions, and he seems intelligent. John can probably get through to him if he’s willing to learn.

“Thing is,” says John, “back then, we didn’t know as much about rabbits as we do today. You probably kept Chester in a hutch outdoors, right?”

Dr. Linus’s head jerks up. His eyes are wide and startled. “Yes.” The corner of mouth quirks slightly. “Except when I could sneak him inside past my father.”

John lets himself smile. “Rabbits are fragile. They see a coyote or a strange dog outside their pen, they can keel over right there. Heart attack. Coco is a free range, indoors-only bunny rabbit, and she’s got to stay that way.”

“If that’s what you recommend,” says Linus, clipped. 

“I’m not trying to give you a hard time. It’s what’s best for her.”

“I understand perfectly.”

“So the last thing is, you need to rabbit-proof your apartment.”

The small mouth works furiously for a moment. “That—seems counterintuitive.”

John brushes past him and bends down, taking a book from the bottom shelf of the tall wooden bookcase. When he straightens, Dr. Linus looks away quickly.

“Number one reason people dump their rabbits is the chewing. You leave ‘em alone, they get bored, they’ll chew your carpet, baseboards—anything they can reach.” John hefts the book as an example. “You keep your leatherbound Dostoyevsky on the bottom shelf, and it won’t stand a chance.”

“At least Coco has excellent taste in literature,” Linus mutters, taking it back from him.

“A rabbit’s teeth never stop growing. You did a good thing, stocking up on all those toys. Get rid of that cage, get a nice soft cat bed, and find some ordinary food and water bowls.” John takes out his wallet and retrieves a folded piece of paper. “Instructions for rabbit proofing.”

“I suppose there was no possible way I could have been given this information when you gave me the supply list two days ago.”

John tucks his wallet away. Dr. Linus is holding the paper, but his eyes are on John’s hands, like he thinks there’s more information concealed his pockets.

“No, there wasn’t,” John said, “because I wrote it down just before I came here. Had a hunch you might need it.”

“A hunch. I see.” 

When Ben’s nose twitches, it looks a little like Coco’s.

*

3.

Ben watches through his front window as John Locke walks away from his house. He’s got a long stride, a confident gait. Ben can’t tell, but he thinks he might actually be whistling.

_Intolerable._

He draws the blinds, sits down at his computer, and begins plotting. The shelter, he decides, is the logical place to start gathering information.

He is not, he assures himself as he begins skimming the staff profiles on the Furry Friends Animal Rescue official website, an unreasonable man. He can acknowledge that Locke was simply doing his job. That Ben had not, in strictest honesty, double checked the shopping list he’d been given. That he had not conducted independent research into the field of rabbit maintenance, and was therefore not in a position to question the assertions of anyone who had. He’ll take the feedback he was given, and by the time of their next appointment, his home will have been transformed into the ideal haven for a free range, indoors-only bunny rabbit.

And the moment Locke signs off on it and releases Coco into his custody, Ben will begin the process of systematically destroying his life.

There’s no mention of a John Locke among the staff profiles on the shelter website. The only two employees listed are both women, and a more general search of the site reveals no information on anyone by Locke’s name until he finds an announcements page: 

“Furry Friends Animal Rescue would like to welcome our newest volunteer, John, to our fur family! John, a Tustin resident, is a lover of cats and dogs and animals of all kinds! He doesn’t have any pets of his own, but that just means he has more love to give our furry friends waiting for their forever homes here at the rescue!”

For a brief moment, Ben is so incandescent with rage that his surroundings are lost in a blur of white light. A volunteer. He has been condescended to and ordered around by a _volunteer_. He allowed this man into his home, to peer and sneer and pass judgment, _and he isn’t even a professional in his field._

Ben begins to recklessly google the words “John Locke”, using the boolean operators to remove as many philosophy-related search results as possible. Probably the results will not be terribly informative. Locke is, no doubt, some sort of degenerate, fulfilling the community service hours he was assigned as penance for his latest DUI. Not the sort of man who would have his own website, or any sort of professional presence on the internet. Perhaps his name will turn up on one of the crime blotters.

Poor Chester had lived out his rather brief life in a rickety outdoor cage made of plywood and chicken wire. He was prone to getting sore spots on his feet where the fur was rubbed away, but Ben, age 12, hadn’t known the cause, and his father at that time was in no position to take an interest. Chester was already three years old when the neighbor lady moved away and asked Ben if he’d like to keep him. Two years later, Ben went outside one morning to clean Chester’s cage and found him there, unmoving. 

He never know what went wrong. As a boy, it seemed to him that animals died for all sorts of mysterious reasons. So did people. Life was hard, that way. Bullying other people only makes it harder for everyone. 

Ben doesn’t put up with it, these days.

Locke’s name turns up in a story published six months ago on a small literary website that Ben, in his willful ignorance of internet culture, has never heard of. Longform journalism about true crime appears to be something of a house specialty. Ben skips from one title to the next, until his eyes land on the relevant blurb.

_“Son of Conman-Turned-Murderer Anthony Cooper Tells His Story in Exclusive Interview”._

A thrill goes up Ben’s spine. He adjusts his glasses and sits back, waiting for the article to load. 

_What would you do if you met your dying father for the first time?_

_What if you found out the reunion was set up because he needed a kidney?_

_What if you had the power to turn him in to the police for murder? Wouldn’t you want revenge?_

_Why would you ever let him go?_

_“I don’t know,” is all John Locke can say when I ask him. In his early forties, he’s ruggedly handsome, one green eye bisected by a vertical scar. Our interview takes place in a motel room off Interstate 00, where Locke has lived since being released from the hospital in September. Since donating a kidney to the father who abandoned him before birth, Locke has lost everything. Once, he owned a house, a business, and was engaged to be married. Now he lives on disability and rarely leaves the single room he calls home._

_For a man described by his former neighbors and coworkers as kind, thoughtful, and energetic, Locke’s situation seems dismal. But when I ask him if he blames his father, Locke shakes his head._

_“I blame myself,” he says.”_

Ben reads to the end, then closes the article and turns away from his computer, feeling strangely numb. He faces the emptiness of his house with a peculiar impression of afterimage, as though he’d stared too long into the wreckage of John Locke’s life.

So he isn’t a confidence trickster after all. When Ben saw the title of the article, he’d half expected to find that “John Locke” was one of Cooper’s aliases. But he appears to be the exact opposite of a con man, whatever that is. A forgiving man. A credulous one, who possesses little capacity for deceit. 

A harmless—a harmless fool, in fact. 

Except that, John had not, at any point, impressed Ben as being a fool. Quite the opposite. There was something altogether too knowing in his air; that was what had rankled Ben in the first place. Men like him, whose arms were lumpy with muscles, who wore undershirts tucked into their jeans and loaded hay bales into vans, such men were not— 

They weren’t supposed to make Ben feel untutored. And silly. And unaccountably flustered. And if they did, they were supposed to learn a short, sharp lesson about what happens to people who put Ben Linus in his place. Not—not make him feel like a bully.

Not sear his mind’s eye with the image of a man sitting in a dingy motel room, lit only by the flicker of a TV screen, looking out on the world with sad eyes the color of sea glass.

Tomorrow, Ben decides with finality, he’ll go back to the pet supply store. He’ll get the right hay, and the rabbit-proofing supplies. 

He’ll get all of it.

And when John comes to see him again, he’ll—he’ll know that Ben was listening to him, that’s all.

*

4.

A massive, sleek grey moggie named Jumbotron is grooming himself against John’s beard stubble, tickling John’s nose with his whiskers. On the floor next to John, Coco is chowing down on a bunch of parsley, while an orange kitten, Rico, and a year old Siamese mix named Beast stand by, regarding the parsley with a shared air of deep suspicion.

Just an ordinary afternoon in the Furry Friends Animal Rescue social room. John’s finished the cleaning, the feeding, and the unloading for the day. Now it’s just him, the cats, and a rabbit, relaxing in each other’s company.

For John, this will be the undeniable high point of his entire week.

He’s thinking some stuff over while Jumbo nuzzles his ear and Coco sniffs his shoes in search of grass clippings and DC (short for Damn Cat, according to his last family) flops down extravagantly, waiting for someone to make the mistake of touching her belly.

The motel room has been his home for two months now. It’s miserable, but that was never important before. Where else should a miserable person live?

Only now, he’s thinking about Coco. There’s no way John could bring Coco home with him, even if it weren’t against motel policy. He’ll need to better his living conditions if he wants to bring any animal home without making himself a giant hypocrite. 

To do that, he’ll have to get a new job. Save some money. Make an effort. All of which would have been out of the question a few months ago.

But then he’d tricked himself, signing on to volunteer at the shelter. Now, there’s no actual difference between what he does here, and a real job. Except a real job pays.

Tarisse is graduating from college soon. She’ll be moving back east afterwards. Dana had mentioned it in the van during a food run last week. 

Now, John wonders if that had been a hint.

Jumbo butts his ear again, and John tilts his head to accommodate him. The cat leaps down, tail crooked like a question mark, and saunters over to Coco, who stands on her back legs to sniff his face. 

Rabbits really shouldn’t be single pets. There are other rabbits at other shelters. Or maybe Jumbo would like a new home.

Maybe Coco’s not the only one who deserves to live somewhere better than a dingy one-room fleapit off the interstate.

*

Dr. Linus’s second home inspection is scheduled for one week to the day after the first. He would have let him have more time, but Linus had insisted on the date, and John’s trepidation over this appointment has been building steadily all day. He’d embarrassed Linus a little last week, he thinks. And Linus seems like a sharp, educated guy. A thinker. The sort of person who could really make you feel it, if he decided you needed to be taken down a peg or two. 

If he felt like getting some payback after last week, who knows what’s waiting for John when he knocks on his door?

But Linus opens the door promptly, with a smile that doesn’t look like it has any dark corners in it. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Locke,” he says. “Thanks for coming out. How are you this evening?” 

John’s mouth falls open a little. “Doing okay, thanks for asking.”

“Can I take your jacket?”

He’s only wearing a light windbreaker with the shelter logo on it. He’d tossed it on at the last minute, thinking maybe that it might make him look a little more official. 

“No, I’m all right. How have you been?” John says, cautiously.

“Oh, can’t complain.” Linus’s mouth can’t seem to decide how big it should smile. “And how is Coco?”

“Pretty much the same as last week.”

“Well.” Linus has a gleam in his eye, like he’s got some kind of surprise waiting and he’s eager to see John’s reaction. “Shall we?”

John follows him to the living room. Which has, in fact, undergone a few changes since the last time he was here. 

Where the ugly black cage with its exposed wire floor had sat, there is now a...rabbit mansion, made entirely out of brown cardboard boxes that have been unfolded and taped together, with holes cut to provide a maze of compartments, tunnels, and levels for a rabbit to explore. It’s three feet tall and five feet wide and held together with paper tape. Here and there, John can read pencil jottings of measurements taken and recorded in Linus’s tiny, precise handwriting.

“All the research I did said that bored bunnies were destructive bunnies.” Dr. Linus stands next to him, gazing down on his handiwork with an air of barely concealed triumph. “And that, in the beginning, I would vastly underestimate the amount of chewing that one rabbit could do. So I thought something like this would be dually useful. For me as well, since cardboard boxes constitute a virtually bottomless resource.”

“This is really something.” John gets closer, crouching to peer through the nearest entryway at rabbit eye level. Toys and miniature sheafs of hay—it’s the right kind of hay this time—are scattered through the rooms and tunnels. “Dr. Linus, you’re an artist.”

When he stands up, Linus is blushing. “I did all the rabbit proofing you suggested. Everything she might nibble on is covered up, cords and chair legs and the like. There’s a place for her to sleep in every room. And I built a rather impressive hayrack out of wire shelving sides, if I do say so myself.”

“Lead the way,” says John, rubbing his chin.

Dr. Linus takes John from room to room, pointing out the newly installed bunny amenities in every corner. A crinkly paper tunnel in the hallway. A hayrack two feet high fastened to the back of a cabinet. A soft pet bed in nearly every corner, just like he’d promised. 

It must have taken him hours. Not to mention, cost a small fortune. 

“I’m impressed,” John admits, when Linus shows him the covered litter box that looks like some kind of mid-century filing cabinet with holes cut in the ends. “I really am.”

Linus raises his eyebrows. “Impressed enough to let me adopt your rabbit?”

“She’s not my rabbit.” John peers down at a baseboard, which is covered in strips of shipping tape, exactly as described in the rabbit-proofing instructions he left with Linus last week. 

“She might as well be. You’re as protective of her as a father chaperoning his daughter’s junior prom.”

John looks away, smiling. “Can’t be too careful. Lot of untrustworthy fellas around. But I’m not worried. You went above and beyond here, Doc.”

Linus’s ears seem to get a little pinker. “Please. I don’t even let my students call me that. Call me Ben.”

_If you’ll call me John_ is on the tip of his tongue, but he stops himself. He’s not going to be around long enough for Ben to call him anything.

“As far as my inspection goes, you passed with flying colors,” he says, and does his best to sound happy about it. “I’ll let Dana know, and I guess you can come down to the shelter next chance you get. I’ll make sure all Coco’s toys get packed up. Having familiar things around will help her adjust to her new home.”

Ben—Dr. Linus—blinks. “Will you be there tomorrow?”

“No, I’m just a volunteer, I only work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.”

“Today is Thursday.” A line appears in Ben’s forehead.

The truth is, John has taken to coming in every day the shelter is open. It’s the best use of his free time he can imagine. And it’s not like he gets paid less than he does when his name is on the schedule.

“I’ll come for her on Tuesday,” Ben says suddenly, like he’s trying to cover up the sound of John’s silence. “If you don’t mind keeping her another weekend.”

The tickle in John’s throat becomes insistent. “No problem at all,” he says. 

*

5.

On Tuesday, when Ben picks Coco up at the shelter, John is nowhere to be seen. When he asks, the manager says that John called in with a stomach bug that morning, but that Coco’s favorite toys were all packed up and ready to go. 

Ben examines the small bag of rabbit toys while Dana goes into the kennel room to bring Coco out. Coco’s favorites are obvious—they’re more nibbled on than the rest. He slips a ball and wooden carrot into his pockets and turns around when Dana reappears in the doorway carrying Coco in her little box of hay.

“And here she is,” says Dana, putting her on the counter. Coco climbs out. Ben gives her his fingers to inspect, and pets her soft ears, and tells her she’s a good bunny. Dana begins thrusting paperwork at him, and Ben signs his name with his free hand. 

“John is very dedicated to his work, you know,” he finds himself telling Dana as he dots his i’s. “Not to mention highly knowledgeable in this field.”

“John’s a great guy,” says Dana approvingly. “I’d hire him on in a heartbeat if I could.” The flat set of her mouth makes it clear that she can’t, and doesn’t want more advice on the subject, thanks.

Ben picks Coco up. He hadn’t, on his previous visits. She has more heft than he expected based on her size. Together, they pose for a smiling adoption photo, Coco cradled firmly against his chest. Afterwards, he lures her into the pet carrier with a piece of banana, then zips the door shut. 

Somehow, that’s all it takes. Coco is now his rabbit, whether she likes it or not. The carrier will unzip next time in the bunny playpen in Ben’s living room, where the only familiar sights and smells will come from the toys in Ben’s pocket: the ball of brightly colored woven straw, and a piece of wood whittled into the likeness of a carrot. 

Ben has a sinking feeling that John carved the carrot himself.

He wishes suddenly that he’d spent more time letting Coco get to know him before all this. What if she doesn’t like him? What if she’s miserable at his place? What if she’s bonded with John so completely that all she does is pine for him?

As he’s leaving, he lets the little bag holding Coco’s less-favorite toys fall to the floor near the counter. Someone will pick them up. Dana won’t want to waste them; she’ll put them on a shelf, to give to the cats, maybe. 

The next time John comes in, he’ll find the toys there. 

John is lonely, and he loves Ben’s rabbit. Hopefully, he won’t walk past the perfect excuse to come visit Coco in her new home. 

If he does, Ben will just have to get creative.

*

6\. 

“Hi, come in, come in.” Dr. Linus waves John through the door, smiling. “So good of you to come back all this way.”

John had taken a few days off from the shelter. After a final afternoon of Coco trailing after him like she was checking up on his work, followed by an hour with Jumbotron in the social room, John carried Coco back to her cage, stroked her ears one last time, and left. 

He didn’t come back for the rest of the week. Since it turned out Dana wasn’t interested in hiring him after all, she couldn’t really say much about it.

When he did return to the shelter, he found Coco’s bag of toys on the shelf behind the counter. To John it felt like a gut punch—why would Dr. Linus toss Coco’s only possessions aside like that?—but when he asked, Dana was positive that Linus had dropped the bag by accident. 

She’d been happy and a little surprised to see him when he turned up to work this morning, so after closing, John ventured to ask if he could borrow the van to drive back to Dr. Linus’s house. Dana was fine with it, and Dr. Linus sounded surprisingly glad to hear from John when he called.

“How’s our girl?” John asks. The house smells like cooking, a rich fragrance like onions browning in butter, and also a little like cleaning products.

“For a voiceless animal,” says Linus, “Coco makes quite a racket. But we’re getting along very well, I think. I took a nap on the sofa yesterday afternoon and when I woke up, she was sitting on my chest. Gave me a start. Please, sit down.”

John lifts his hands. “Appreciate it, Ben, but I don’t want to—”

“Just a moment!” Ben calls behind him, as he darts from the room. “Got a pot on the stove, don’t want to overboil.”

John sighs, and glances at the room around him. Through the window, he can see the windows of Ben’s neighbors’ houses, shining gold in the late afternoon sunlight. He realizes, blinking at the strangeness of the thought, that it’s been a long time since he was last in anybody’s home, since he sat on a couch or put a mug down on a coaster. 

“So, John, I know this isn’t _why_ you came back out here.” John finds Ben in the doorway, tugging his hand free of an oven mitt. “But it just so happens that dinner has just come out of the oven. Would you join me? I’d like to ask your advice about something, but I’m also hungry. There’s more than enough for two.”

John’s been living on tuna sandwiches and peanut butter and apples for a long time. It’s humiliating, how much John wants to say yes. 

“You don’t have to bribe me with food just to get my advice,” he feels obligated to point out. “I’ll give that out to anybody for free.”

Ben’s smile is quick, and surprisingly warm. “I know. You’re a generous person, John.” He pauses. “We can eat at the kitchen table, since it’s the two of us.”

There’s beef stew in a cast iron pot. A loaf of soda bread, slightly crisp from warming in the oven, sits in the middle of the table, alongside a pot of Irish butter. As soon as they’ve sat down, Ben scoops stew out of his bowl with a generously buttered hunk of bread and starts eating. John hesitates just a moment before reaching for piece of bread and digging in. 

The stew is rich and full of complex, earthy flavors, filled with chunks of good beef, bright green peas, sliced carrots, gold potatoes, mushrooms, and onions. 

“You made this?” says John between mouthfuls.

“Everything but the butter, including the sweet tea. Would you care for a glass?”

“Allow me,” says John. He finds a water glass, and the iced tea pitcher in the fridge. Ben watches him move around the kitchen. There’s a glint in his eye that John’s a little afraid to question.

“I looked for you when I picked Coco up last week.” Ben saws through a few more pieces of bread and offers John the plate. “I wouldn’t have stolen her away from you without letting you say goodbye.”

“We said our goodbyes,” John tells him.

Ben’s mouth tightens. “If you took the day off on purpose to avoid me, I’m surprised you were willing to come here. You could have mailed Coco’s toys.”

John blinks. He’s not too surprised that Ben figured that out, but he’s plenty surprised that he brought it up.

“If I’d mailed ‘em, I wouldn’t have had the chance to see Coco.” John looks at Ben from across the table. “It wasn’t you I was trying to avoid.”

“Oh?”

He wouldn’t talk about something like this normally, but Ben looks interested, not just idly curious. And he’s paying more attention to John than anyone has since he got out of the hospital, so John thinks it over for a minute.

“I wasn’t very fair to you when we first met.” The stew is cool, and the bread sits heavy in his stomach. “When I came over the first time, I knew you weren’t gonna be ready. I wasn’t as clear about my expectations as I could have been.”

“Thank you for that,” Ben mutters, arching an eyebrow ruefully.

“I thought you’d give up after I failed you on the first inspection. I figured that would give me time to get a better paying job and a place of my own, so I could bring a pet home.” He sets his spoon aside and doesn’t meet Ben’s eyes. “It was selfish of me. And you’re right, I shouldn’t have bothered you—”

“I didn’t say it was a bother,” Ben interrupts, voice sharp. 

John nods, to acknowledge the kindness. “The food is wonderful,” he says, because he should have said so earlier. “Been awhile since anyone cooked for me.”

“Oh?”

He thinks about a campfire at dusk. Sausages on sticks, apples and onions wrapped in foil and buried in the embers of the fire. 

“I used to go hunting with my father,” John says, because that will sound normal, to someone who doesn’t know. “We cooked over the fire. He did. I burned everything.”

Ben turns inexplicably white. He blinks down at his bowl, then starts eating like he’s ready to be done with the meal. John politely keeps pace with him, and when both their bowls are empty, he volunteers to clear the table. A habit as old as childhood; John always had to earn his crusts of bread. 

“Leave them, please,” says Ben. “Let’s go see Coco.”

John follows Ben to his office, next to the bedroom. A play pen is set up in the corner. “Normally she comes and goes as she pleases,” Ben explains, “but I wanted her safely contained while I was cooking.” 

In the corner of the pen, half buried under a soft blue fleece blanket, is a small vibrating ball of white and brown fur. “Ah, she’s going at the puzzle box again.” Ben’s smile is lopsided. “She’s a clever little thing, really. All right, fussbudget, here you go. See who’s come to visit you.” He pulls the blanket aside, and lifts the latch on the door of the pen. Coco bounds up to it and lifts her head, sniffing the air.

John thought, back in the kitchen, that he would just say a quick hello and be on his way. Now he finds himself crouched down on the floor, holding his hand out so Coco can catch the familiar scent. She might not care that he’s here, and he tells himself he’s prepared for that. Rabbits remember the people they’ve known, but they’re easily distracted, especially in a new environment, full of toys and spaces and rooms to explore.

Coco scoots across the floor to nudge the back of his hand. Then she jumps into his lap.

“Oh,” says John. He starts petting her automatically; she has him very well trained. “Hi, Coco. Nice to see you again.” Coco stands up on her hind legs and puts her paws on his chest, nose quivering. “Well,” he says, as she begins to lick his face.

“Oh my.” John opens one eye to see that Ben’s hand over his mouth. “I didn’t know rabbits did that.”

John intends to make some kind of glib remark about the similarities between rabbits and dogs. Something bland and forgettable.

“Been awhile since I felt like I meant this much to someone,” he says.

For a moment, he’s too engrossed in stroking Coco’s nose and petting her ears to give anything else a second thought. A second later, he glances up. Ben is staring at him.

“Hell,” John mutters. Coco bounds off his lap, alarmed by the tensing of his muscles. He climbs to his feet as quickly as his sore leg will let him. His heart is hammering in his throat. “I need to get going.”

“Oh, but—” Ben lets John go past him through the door, but follows close on his heels. “But why? We haven’t even talked yet! I told you I needed your advice...”

Ben’s house is comfortable, not large. John is already to the front door. He hesitates there on the doormat, not meeting Ben’s eye.

“You’re doing everything right,” he says. “My only advice is that you should consider getting a friend for Coco. Plenty of rabbits need homes. Or there’s a cat at the shelter she got along with pretty well.” 

Coco’s bag of toys is still in the pocket of his windbreaker. John swallows hard and hands it across to Ben. “Rabbits shouldn’t be alone,” he says. “It’s not good for them.”

Ben’s stares intensifies. His mouth is open. He shakes his head, twice, like John has said something incredible.

Then he steps forward, reaches for John’s face, and kisses him.

That’s the word John uses, thinking about it, but if it’s a kiss, it’s also like getting punched in the mouth by another pair of lips. He expects to taste blood, and is surprised when he doesn’t. He tastes hot, slick skin, and feels strong hands pulling him down to Ben’s level. 

Ben is stronger than he looks. Ben is pushing him, pressing him back into the door, the weight of his body holding John in place. His mouths falls hot against the side of John’s neck, and John cries out, his whole body ringing like a bell; he can’t think over how loudly Ben is touching him.

And then Ben pulls back. Ben looks up at him, cheeks pink, eyes slightly wild. 

“You can’t just _leave_ ,” he says, voice cracking. “Coco _needs_ you. We have to agree on a, a visitation schedule.”

John tries to remember how to breathe. “Seriously?”

He hesitates. “Perhaps not at this exact moment.” 

Carefully, Ben removes his glasses and places them on the shelf above the coat hooks. 

When he kisses John this time, it’s gentler. This is better, because John can breathe. It’s also worse, because it gives John time to think. 

He’s never done this with a man before. He’s never done this with anyone, other than Helen. Ben is kissing him over and over, a flurry of light touches against his lips, his face, his _neck_ , Christ. He’s warm from head to foot. He doesn’t understand why Ben is doing this, with him. What does he expect from John? What is John tacitly agreeing to, by just standing here, letting this happen? His heart knocks against his chest. He’s terrified that his legs are just going to give way, that he’ll buckle at the knees and look up from the floor to find Ben gazing down at him, shaking his head in pity.

“Let’s sit down,” Ben whispers, mouth close to John’s ear. “Come on, sit with me.”

Little shocks are zinging up and down John’s arms. Ben’s hand is heavy on the small of his back. He’s not hard and he thinks maybe he’s supposed to be. Will Ben get mad if he notices? Maybe not, maybe John got it wrong and that’s not what Ben wants from him. 

Sofa cushions press into the back of his knees. He sits, and then Ben is next to him, or on top of him, or both. The weight of him is heavy against John’s leg. It’s been a long time since John had another person in his space like this.

It’s been a long time since John had anyone pay this much attention just to him. 

“I should have asked first,” says Ben. He pulls back a little, hands running over John’s shoulders, squeezing his biceps. “It wasn’t courteous to jump you this way, I just couldn’t seem to…” 

He trails off, keen eye darting up and down John’s torso. Ben’s cheeks are pink, his hair is sticking up.

“Wait,” John manages, catching Ben just before he leans in again. “Wait, I need…”

“What is it?” Ben’s head comes up, his expression alert. 

He can still taste the inside of Ben’s mouth. Ben’s lips are slick from the inside of John’s. “I don’t know,” he says. He grabs Ben’s arm and squeezes, an anchor point. “This stuff...I don’t know what to do. What should I do?”

It feels like the wrong thing to say, but Ben doesn’t look angry. He swallows, and John watches his throat bob.

“Do you want this?” Ben asks, in a soft voice.

“I think so.” 

Ben rubs his palms up and down over John’s arms. The pressure, the warmth, it’s soothing. “Then all you have to do is let me.” 

Just like that, the thread of his thoughts snaps, and all the tangles come loose. A strange warmth spreads in John’s chest. That option never occurred to him. He’s always thought of sex in terms of his own ability to perform. Even when it wasn’t expected of him, he had that expectation of himself. But if Ben doesn’t need him to pull out the stops, if he’s getting something out of doing all the hard work, then John’s just grateful. 

Ben tugs at his arm until John leans on his chest. He wraps his arms around John, holds him for a long moment. He touches his lips to the shell of John’s ear. John’s body feels like it’s getting heavier, as tension gives way and he relaxes into Ben’s hands. 

When Ben pulls the windbreaker over his head, John feels the warmth of Ben's touch through the thin fabric of his t-shirt, and wonders what the hell he’s going to do when the shirt comes all the way off.

“Lie back,” Ben tells him. “On your back, on the cushions.” 

Ben starts fumbling with his own belt. John quickly lies back. Watching Ben get undressed shouldn’t be making him nervous, not if he’s going to do this. He stares at the popcorn ceiling and tries to ignore the small, sharp thorn of anxiety in his gut. He wonders what it’s going to feel like. There are things John’s never let himself think about too hard about, experiments he’s never tried even in private. He wonders what it’s been like for Ben. Maybe he does this whenever he feels like it, and that’s why he’s so confident. Maybe this is just an old familiar routine to him, and there’s nothing special about John, except that he was here when the mood struck.

“Lift up,” says Ben. John can’t see, but he can feel: Ben’s fingers working on his belt, unzipping his fly, tugging at his jeans but not his briefs.

John lifts his hips. For a second he’s back in the hospital, mostly helpless but trying to be less of a burden to the nurses. Then Ben is hovering over him on hands and knees, his body like a warm cage, and John automatically raises his head so Ben can reach his lips. 

Ben kisses him furiously. His weight settles over John like a heavy blanket. All at once John gets why they’re going this; he’s melting with warmth, skin singing with comfortable urgency. His legs fall wide, knees splayed, one foot dangling over the side of the couch.

Ben’s groan vibrates in John’s throat. “Yes,” he says, and rocks his hips into John’s hips. “Yes, like that.”

John doesn’t even notice that he’s hard until he feels Ben’s erection rub against his. 

The friction makes him cry out, but there’s nowhere for the sound to go, except into Ben’s mouth. Ben takes John’s wrists and holds them down on either side of his head. He arches his back, his weight bearing down on the whole length of John’s body. Their bodies press together, and all John has to do is let him, and let him, and let him.

His orgasm is both gentle and huge, a release that starts deep inside him and pours out in the come from his cock and the tears from his eyes and the sweat from his brow. Ben talks to him through it, but John can’t hear much of anything over the roar of his own heartbeat. 

He lies there a long time. Ben rearranges himself, half lying on his side, half on top of John, their faces level. John kisses him, trying to convey the gratitude he doesn’t know how to shape into words. Ben grips the back of his neck with a heavy hand and presses John’s face into the curve of his neck.

“Let me know if I’m getting heavy for you,” Ben mutters. 

John doesn’t bother to reply. Ben’s hand is under his shirt, stroking along his side and back. Somehow, all of that happened without either of them getting naked. John wouldn’t have thought it was possible.

A thought like a mosquito starts buzzing at the edge of John’s awareness. The longer he tries to ignore it, the more the blissful fog in his head gives way to hard-edged clarity. 

The sex was something special. It’s over now, though. Ben’s too polite to kick him out in a hurry, but John’s already looking at tomorrow, and next week, and there’s just no room for him there. He’s got nothing to offer someone like Ben. This living room, where the sunlight spills over comfortable afghans and leatherbound books and framed pictures, John can’t add anything to that. He doesn’t have a career, or family, or friends. He doesn’t have a life of his own.

For awhile, he had a rabbit. 

“You gave me a carrot,” Ben mumbles.

“Excuse me?” says John.

“At the shelter. The day we met.” Ben pushes up on his elbow, rubbing at his eyes with his sleeve. “You gave me a carrot to feed Coco, so she’d like me. It was very sweet and unexpected of you. Particularly since you didn’t like _me_ very much.”

John smiles a little. “I wouldn’t say—”

“That’s roughly the moment I first started thinking about this. About you, in this light.” He blinks down at John. Without his glasses, he looks kind of pink and raw, like a baby bird just hatched. “If I admit that I deliberately left Coco’s toys at the shelter so you’d come visit me again, will you stop having your second thoughts so very loudly?”

Ben’s tone is dry, but his mouth is wobbling uncertainly. John gapes at him, thinking back to the shelter, to Dana’s arched eyebrow when she told him to use the van. He remembers Ben opening the door, the warm home smells of cooking and cleaning that greeted him. 

“You cooked for me,” John says accusingly.

Ben shrugs. His hand comes to rest on John’s chest, just over his heart. John wonders if the gesture is supposed to be possessive, or if that’s just his own wishful thinking.

“I have it on good authority that people like you better when you feed them.” Ben’s eyes are downcast, as if he’s watching John breathe, but they flicker upwards for just a second. “Incidentally, I have a pie in the oven for dessert. I’ll go get it, if you promise to be here when I come back.”

Ben’s eyes, normally so penetrating, are full of familiar insecurities. He’s not alone, John realizes. Ben’s in just as deep as he is. 

“I promise,” he says, the hand on chest relaxes, then grips him tighter than before.


End file.
